There are many situations in which remote monitoring of various conditions is desirable. For example, up-to-the minute status of high voltage feeder circuit breakers in electrical substations have been monitored in a remote manner, as well as other state conditions sensors, such as pressure, temperature, liquid level and the like, intrusion sensors are often monitored in a remote manner as are smoke detectors. Recently, medical information and even the location of a person have been monitored in a remote manner.
In the past, such remote monitoring equipment has used land line communication between the monitoring equipment and the monitoring station. However, such land line communication links can be subject to several drawbacks. For example, in severe weather conditions or in wet climates, the land lines may be damaged by weather conditions or water. Such damage may degrade the link to such an extent that data transmitted over such link, if transmission is not totally interrupted, may become unreliable. Furthermore, land line communications may be subject to being deliberately interrupted by an intruder.
To overcome such problems, there have been several proposals in the art for including a radio link as a backup to a land line link. Such systems use the land line link if it is available, and switch to the radio link if the land line link is not operative.
While somewhat successful in avoiding the problems associated with a link consisting only of a land line, such land line/radio link systems still have certain drawbacks. For example, a radio link may not permit a system integrity check and there may not be a good method of determining the integrity of the link and ensuring that the monitoring station is on line with the subscriber premises station at all times. If, for example, the antenna at the subscriber station has been damaged, the link may not be properly established, and radio links may not be able to monitor such condition. Many radio link repeater site stations may be open and accessible to many people and thus may be subject to tampering.
Further, many such links may require a "push-to-talk" communication system which restricts the use of supervisory methods which monitor system operation and reliability. While some radio systems may include a polling feature that includes a periodic transmission permitting the receiver and the transmitter to communicate with each other, such polling is only done on a periodic basis and may still not ensure an entirely reliable system. A constant monitoring of the system integrity should be used to ensure full system reliability.
Still another problem with using radio links is that several repeater stations may be required in addition to a base station to cover a prescribed area. Additionally, the radio transmitters at the subscriber premises may be restricted to low power outputs and may be able to communicate only within a certain geographic area and report to only one receiver site having no redundancy. Furthermore, if a repeater station fails, incoming signals may be lost.
Still further, radio transmits may be restricted in the number of radio channels that can be used in a particular geographic area. This may require subscribers to share channels, and create a potentially undesirable situation. Furthermore, if two or more radio transmitters key at the same time, it may be possible that no communication is received at the monitoring station. System overload is also possible with such systems.
Yet a further problem with radio links is the limited adaptability thereof. For example, radio links may not be amenable to use with premises monitoring equipment that includes the transmission of slow scan, freeze frame, or real time CCTV, or to use with supervisory monitoring equipment that might include computer controlled fault-monitoring equipment. More importantly, such systems may not be completely usable with a system that includes downloading of information from the monitoring station to the subscriber station. That is, it may not be possible to efficiently send all of the information and data signals that are necessary for efficiently monitoring a premises from the monitoring station to the subscriber station over such links.
Yet a further problem with such systems is inherent in the switching system itself. That is, as mentioned above, these systems attempt to communicate with the monitoring station via a land line, and if such land line is inoperative, will switch to a radio link. This requirement may make the integrity of the system dependent on the switching system. Should this system become damaged or inoperative, the entire system will become inoperative. It can even be possible to view the overall integrity of the overall system as being a function of the integrity of the switching system. The switching operation may, in some cases, interrupt the data signal and introduce a spike into the signal, and therefore, influence the content and reliability of such signal. In some circumstances, the data can be of such a character that the switching operation may affect such data.
Therefore, systems that use only a land line link between a subscriber station and a monitoring station have problems, and those systems that include a radio link backup and switch to that radio link if the land line link is inoperative also have several restrictions and drawbacks.
The art also includes examples of premises-monitoring systems that include cellular link between the subscriber station and the monitoring station. While overcoming many of the problems associated with land line links and radio links alone, such cellular links still have certain drawbacks. For example, systems using a cellular link exclusively do not have a failsafe capability of a back-up system. If, for some reason, the cellular link is damaged or destroyed, those systems which rely on the cellular link for the exclusive means of establishing communicating between the subscriber station and the monitoring station can be rendered inoperative.
Such systems have been enhanced according to the teachings of U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,125,021 and 5,146,486, which are commonly-owned by the owner of this application. Such patents describe a premises-monitoring system which includes a cellular link between the subscriber station and the monitoring station and that has a very high level of integrity. These systems provide the further advantage of having the ability to cover a large geographic area that can include several monitoring stations with a multiplicity of frequencies and are amenable to a wide variety of monitoring elements.
In preferred embodiments of such systems, a premises-monitoring system is provided which includes a primary communication link between a subscriber's premises and a monitoring station. The primary communication link is preferably a cellular link. According to those patents, a fault means is provided for constantly monitoring the integrity of the cellular communication link and switching to a second telecommunications network if the cellular communication link is not operating properly. Such means can effect the switch before the monitoring equipment transmits an alarm signal thereby maintaining a link between the subscriber station and the monitoring station that is operative before any alarm data signal is sent from the subscriber station premises-monitoring equipment. Data can be sent both ways over both the primary and the secondary communication links at all times so that constant communication can be established and maintained at all times. Typically, the back-up link is a radio telecommunications network, a land line telecommunications network, a fiber optic telecommunications network, a satellite direct network, or a long range radio telecommunications network.
According to such patents, the integrity monitoring means typically includes an electromechanical device that is activated by a "service/no-service" electronic signal on the electronic bus of a cellular transceiver device. The device monitors the integrity of the host cellular transceiver as well as the associated cell sites the host transceiver communicates with. Another feature of such systems is the ability to adapt a single line output alarm control panel for use therein.
While such systems provide distinct advantages over the prior art, there remains a need to enhance such techniques and to interface such systems to technological advances in the cellular data transmission industry.